Sounds like the HDD going bad to me. (Or the controller), but I guess the PSU could be the origin of that too.

If you care about your v3, add a fan to cool it down, but I don't think it's the origin of the problem ...

By the way I think what you have is an athlon, not a K6 (the fastest K6 never went over 600MHz, and the name of your mobo suggest something newer)

Deksor wrote:

Sounds like the HDD going bad to me. (Or the controller), but I guess the PSU could be the origin of that too.

If you care about your v3, add a fan to cool it down, but I don't think it's the origin of the problem ...

By the way I think what you have is an athlon, not a K6 (the fastest K6 never went over 600MHz, and the name of your mobo suggest something newer)

You're right, it is an Athlon.

Going to order a new PSU... I honestly do hope its the PSU since then I only have to replace one part. I can't see how it could be the HDD since the issues happen on a Linux liveCD but then there's a lot I don't understand about PCs, especially older ones.

Just this weekend I had similar issues and after long research I could track it down to a bad IDE cable.

how did you determine it was the IDE cable in your case?

The system did sometimes boot and freeze suddenly while using it, sometimes it froze during execution of config.sys, sometimes during autoexec.bat.

I first switched off BIOS options (i.e. PCI peer concurrency, RAM speed, PIO mode, etc.) one after another, then I swapped components like sound card and graphics card. Finally I noticed that the IDE cable had some barely visible damage and swapped that, which solved the problem completely and the system worked flawlessly.

As you can imagine this took some time, especially since the error was intermittently.

Your CPU is not a K6, it's an Athlon and a very power hungry processor. Your VGA is a Voodoo 3, one of the early AGP 2x cards that really draws a lot of current from the AGP port. If you combined these two with a PSU that has a weak 12V rail, which incidentally also powers your CD-ROM and Hard Drive, all kinds of weirdness can become of this.

The v3 is PCI according to him, and the athlon is rather slow, I don't think it's that bad actually, bit sure the PSU could be the cause of these issues (or not ...)

EdmondDantes wrote:

... However, it could be just a dirty/unclean port, least I hope so, so I'm going to acquire and use some Deoxit first.

The last time I had weird graphical issues like you describe, it was with a GeForce 4 MX 420 where every single capacitor on its PCB had vented... albeit my issues there extended only to graphical weirdness. Since you seem to be having other bugs in your OSes other than just the graphics, oxidized contacts on the VGA port are most likely not the cause of the issues (though cleaning it anyway wouldn't hurt). Adding or pointing a fan at the V3's heatsink like someone else mentioned also wouldn't hurt; supposedly they like to run hot.

If the HDD spins down during load (e.g. formatting), it could indicate a faulty PSU... or it could be the drive saying "screw it" due to problems of its own. We'll find out once your new PSU arrives.

Okay, so I now have reason to believe the worst: that my Voodoo 3 went bad.

First, I tried a different IDE cable, but the graphical issues remained (note here that i got to only testing with that linux live CD I mentioned since it had the most obvious errors and I figure once I solve it, the rest will be solved too).

Then I borrowed an older video card from a friend who happened to just have it. I dunno what it is--it has Samsung chips--but when I plugged it in and booted up that live CD... the graphical issues were gone. All was normal.

Now, there is one hitch: the unknown Samsung card was AGP, not PCI, so it didn't rule out that maybe one PCI port went bad. Thus I tried the Voodoo 3 in the other PCI ports.

The graphical issues remained in all six of them.

So either I have six bad PCI ports but have one AGP that works perfectly fine... or the Voodoo 3 is bad.

Granted, maybe replacing the stock heatsink will clear up all issues as I'm almost certain the thing is just overheating (though... for it to do so soon after startup seems... unusual at best. And the only part of the Voodoo 3 that looks bad is the heat sink, which honestly looks like its melted around the edges. The capacitors don't look the least bit bulged or damaged), but I'm already feeling like I might have to get a new Voodoo.

Course, that new PSU is still on its way even though I'm 99% sure its the Voodoo now.

EDIT: Okay, having just looked up how expensive the Voodoo line has gotten (even V2s and V1s regularly transcend fifty dollars) I'm gonna make a desperate choice and see if I can save this V3.

Like I said, the caps don't seem to have anything wrong with them, and I can't see any other obvious flaws with the card besides the heat sink... but I'm not an expert. What kind of things should I be on the lookout for? Could my problem really be caused by a bad heatsink?

Have you tried the Voodoo 3 in another motherboard?

No I haven't. I'll give that a shot before the day is out.

update... I tested the Voodoo 3 in a Dell GX260, a comp which I have never had any problems with (in fact I tested to make sure there were no pre-existing symptoms before swapping video cards).

The same graphical glitches occured when I put the Voodoo 3 in the Dell, proving its the Voodoo 3.

Now, my dad thinks the video ram is going bad. Is there a way to test for this? And if so... is this something that can be fixed? Like can the old vram be removed from the card and new vram soldered onto the board or something?

Otherwise, I'm looking at replacing the card outright.

Questions About Replacement

I'm actually thinking of going for a Voodoo 2, since those are cheaper plus they might be more compatible with games that had trouble seeing my Voodoo 3 (some games like Need for Speed III said they supported Glide but said my V3 couldn't do it--this was a year ago before the card had any issues and someone here on Vogons confirmed for me that this game is known to not detect later Voodoos). But I'm aware those require another video card.

My dad happened to have a pair of old AGP video cards, one being an ATI Rage Pro Turbo (tempted to say "Super Hyper Fighting Edition") the other a Matrox of some variety... if a Voodoo 1 or 2 is PCI will it still work alongside an AGP video card, or does it have to work alongside another PCI card?

And if I decide to go SLI for whatever reason... same question, can two PCI Voodoos work alongside an AGP video card?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I need to add that at the moment, I haven't tested the AGP cards my dad gave me, and I've read that the AGP standard wasn't really standardized and some older AGP cards won't work in 4x/8x ports... which my motherboard has, if I read the manual correctly. So my questions may all be a moot point, but I'd still like to know anyway. But I really would rather rescue my Voodoo 3 2000 rather than replace it.

I'm guessing the silence since my last update means nobody can help me here?

For what it's worth, I found an older topic where a guy was having issues similar to mine... the suggestions he got were things like blowing a hair dryer at the heat sink or holding the heatsink to the card with a clamp or something. I tried both and it didn't change a thing in my case.

So... does anyone know a video card repair service?

Well.. the issue sounds more like a RAM problem so unless you are willing to invest the time and money to replace all ram modules and the low filter smd capacitors in case one has a microscopic fracture etc that card is very hard to fix..

Can you post high quality photos of both sides of the card maybe a component got torn off at some point?

In my experience a Voodoo 3 AGP is a much much cheaper than a Voodoo 3, I should know I have 5 agp cards.. (Maybe I should sell some..)

Maybe look into doing a Slot 1 / Voodoo 3 AGP system?

I couldn't take pics directly, but I had a cam I was able to make a video of the card with. I had to put up pretty much the raw video since all my attempts to edit degraded the quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nolP7wnnYFQ&feature=youtu.be

First half is me showing the card itself. I can do it again if its not detailed enough. Second half is a demonstration of the glitch (tho I only loaded up Win98, not Linux... but I was surprised how obvious the glitches were even through the eyes of an old DVD-R camera).

Hey, I made another video, this time I got the heatsinks off and showed a close-up of all the chips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9boT5fvgM8&feature=youtu.be

In particular though, I'm wondering if the main 3dfx chip itself looks like its coming off to anyone else, or if I'm just seeing things?

This will be added to the OP as well.

Have You actually tried installing the video card drivers? I've seen glitches before with just the standard Microsoft VGA driver.

If the chip was coming off then You would have a totally dead card already.

If You can shine a torch into your power supply You may be able to see if any capacitors are bulged.

I agree with your dad though, it could well be the video ram, but whatever you do do not throw it out until
You are 100% sure.

That GPU is not coming off or anything, but be careful about yanking off heatsinks like that..

This whole thing looks like it's either VRAM going bad or one of the VRAM filter caps having died..

Try replacing your blinker fluid.